New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with two important local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Native bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.
